Hagrid's Tale - a TGYH Challenge
by Tommy B 101
Summary: Line: Hagrid took a deep drink from his flagon and then continued, "Smart woman, Olympe. Saw that me heart already belonged to another witch. An impossible love, but when's tha' a surprise, right?"


A/N: A little TGYH challenge from Wordhammer on DLP. A little shoddy, as I haven t edited it yet but here!

Line: Hagrid took a deep drink from his flagon and then continued, "Smart woman, Olympe. Saw that me heart already belonged to another witch. An impossible love, but when's tha' a surprise, right?"

Harry Potter walked through the destroyed grounds and to the hut that belonged to Hagrid. He noticed, all around him, several pits that bordered the Great Lake of Hogwarts, presumably having been dug out by spell-damage. The fenced-in paddock that was behind the hut seemed to have been removed entirely, the posts having been dug out from the earth.

The hut had taken about two hours to repair, after most of it was found intact. Striding up to the hut and stepping onto the small step before the door, Harry knocked on the door to Hagrid's hut. It was three days after the final battle and Hagrid had decided to keep a low-profile in his hut.

After a few seconds, the door cracked open and Hagrid gazed down at Harry from his tangled mass of a beard.

"'Arry?" said Hagrid in what counted, for him, as a whisper.

"Hagrid, old friend," Harry reached up to pat the elder man's shoulder. "You feeling okay?"

Hagrid Hiccuped into his beard and nodded slowly. "Alrigh, I guess."

He shuffled backward, a tired man who appeared to be burdened with the weight of the world on his massive shoulders, allowing Harry entrance.

"You were with me, Hagrid," Harry murmured into the silence of the crackling fire. "You were there when I was declared dead yet you doubted it. You had faith in me and I could never repay you for that."

Hagrid had been Harry's first friend in the Wizarding world and if Harry had been about to die, Hagrid would have been his last. The fact that Hagrid had been there all these years, an unmovable force that would stop at nothing to support the name of Dumbledore and to back Harry up meant that Hagrid was loyal to the core.

After ten minutes of catching up and Harry thanking Hagrid for being there in his hour of need, he noticed that after all matters were settled and all apologies were uttered, that Hagrid still did not budge from his emotional state.

"There's something else bugging you, isn't there?" Harry asked, having grown tired of skirting the problem.

"Noth'n for you to worry abou, 'Arry," Hagrid tried to sound convincing.

"Yeah?" said Harry, disbelief dripping from every octave that his word rose. "Tell me, then, why are you pouring a heavy mixture of fire-whisky and dragon urine for yourself?"

Dragon urine was known to have a kick and a very strong one at that. Add an odor-removing charm and you had a very potent alcohol. Hagrid, who couldn't see his way out of this one, began to tell his story about the conversation he had had with Olymp, a few hours after Harry had ended Voldemort's reign of terror:

"We were chattin, Olymp and I. We spoke of what'd happen now that yeh've finished old Tommy. It was general natter, things like: What we'd do, how we'd set things to rights and the like.

Olymp, though, wasn't happy with speakin of minor things, y'know? So she tried to change the conversation to... us."

Harry nodded sympathetically. Indeed, he knew what Hagrid meant. War had changed them. Ginny had similarly approached Harry, only to be rebuffed. Now, her hero was back and now she wanted him. Maybe the circumstances of Harry and Ginny s relationship, compared to that of Hagrid and Olymp were different.

Hagrid continued with his story, "Olymp could see that I was hintin at 'er, so she could change the topic, but I could see she knew what was 'appenin."

Hagrid took a deep drink from his flagon and then continued, "Smart woman, Olympe. Saw that me heart already belonged to another witch. An impossible love, but when's tha' a surprise, right?"

Again, Harry nodded. He truly felt for his friend, a man who had nobody to be his proverbial shoulder to cry on; nobody to warm his bed at night - save for Fang. A curse of loveless existence, all because of his status as a half-giant. Similarities between Harry and Hagrid seemed to be cropping up at an alarming rate.

"She jus' looked at me all funny-like and s-said..." Hagrid began crying in Ernest, now. Big tears pooled in his beetle-black eyes. "She said that she'd wait, 'Arry! She d wait for me to to make up mi mind, bless her."

Hagrid hunched over his table, his shoulders forward. He sniffled and sobbed, letting the emotions pour from him. Harry hated to see such a big man vulnerable. He had a question, though, but he feared the insensitivity of it. He tried to think of a delicate way to phrase it, so as not to plunge the half-giant into further bouts of depression. Deciding that there was no way around it, Harry took the plunge and came out with it.

"Hagrid," he said carefully. "Who is this other woman you speak of? This other love?"

Hagrid sat back up and began mopping his eyes with his table-cloth-sized handkerchief. Gulping and trying to prevent the flow of further tears from spilling into his drink, he said three words that finally managed to make Harry leap, headfirst, out of his post-war stupor:

"Dolores Jane Umbridge!" he shouted.

Harry sat there in numb disbelief, letting Hagrid s words wash over him. Surely, he had heard wrong?

"U-Umbridge?" Harry asked uncertainly.

"Oh, mi Dilly Dolores!" Hagrid exclaimed, his expression clearing at once.

"B-but stuttered Harry, how can that be! She ran you down, for Merlin s sake!

Harry remembered all those nights ago, sitting atop the astronomy tower and watching Umbridge and her band of Aurors, as they tried to take Hagrid out. He remembered Hagrid lumbering into the forest, Phang under one arm.

"Don t worry, Harry," Hagrid reassured. "Dolores is with my brother at the mo. We like to take er in turns, see?"

Harry felt like he wanted to vomit. I-in turns? he stammered out.

"Yeah!" agreed Hagrid, a smile creeping onto his face. Sometimes, we even double-team... 'Arry? Arry! Where yeh goin!


End file.
